Back to Reality!

Well, it has been absolutey ages since I last posted a blog – and with good reason! We’ve been on holiday! We had to pop over to the UK to post the bans so we can get married. Legally, that is! So, we’re going to get married on our tenth wedding anniversary. Liverpool is the only place that will do this for us. If we try to marry overseas, we both need to get certificates of approval from our Embassy to get married. This is easy enough for me; but Marc is German, and his divorce was in the British courts. That means the German Embassy wants a translation of all his divorce papers, which then have to be attested. And they can’t do any of this in Kuwait; it has to go to Berlin. So…. Liverpool it is.

Anyway, to make it feel a bit moreholiday-ish, we stopped in Amsterdam on the way. I’m pretty sure I’ve already posted pics of the hotels on my last blog… So I’ll skip to the bit where we got back. We’ve been back for a week and a half now, but last week I still felt like I was on holiday, so no blogging or even coursework for me! But look – since I started writing the blog, I have felt a renewed appreciation of the culture here; or rather, the variety of culture! Just one visit to Al Khout Mall yielded the following experiences…

Kuwait Fishermen still use Traditional Dhows

First, the harbour. This is where the fishermen keep their boats – they go offshore in these little dinghies, with one outboard motor (and a buddy boat) and most can’t swim, so they all wear their life jackets, unlike us. You can also see the traditional dhow (minus sail) which is still commonly used for fishing. A few months ago, we went to fill up Big Suzi at the fuel stations (can you see it in the background) and it was hot, so all the guys were hosing themselves. So I went under the hose, and that was hot! Boy did those fishermen laugh when I danced and squealed.Next, the Fish Market, where we buy our shrimps.

The Local Fish Market

We pay 70quid for 10kg, complete with heads! Once cleaned, we get about 18 bags of large shrimps – you know the Ziploc sandwich bags? Like those. Anyway, see the Indian guys? They take the heads off our shrimps for a dinar (and then Marc tried to convince me it was extravagant to pay a guy a dinar to wash my car yesterday)!

And when they were doing that, Marc and I went to the Fruit Market next door to buy some bananas, and found a great crate of small, sweet ones (again for a dinar). I fancied some tangerines, and the stall holder said a word, and out popped the top box, leaving a gap with a head in it!

And the oranges jumped straight out of place!

Well, it was funny at the time! So you see, it sometimes feels like being in an exotic land of dreams. I love it here. And altough I am working part time with the diving, and studying part time with OU, it still feels like a permanent holiday!